My take on the waning political influence of climate scientists and environmentalists

It seems pretty clear that the political movement to curb greenhouse gas emissions has lost momentum, both in the United States and abroad, even before the election in Massachusetts of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate.

In a story today I have tried to summarize how this once potent movement has slowed down. Some of the main reasons:

• A down economy

• A focus on the environment, instead of energy

• Over-reaching on the science (hurricanes, New York under water)

• A tobaccolike campaign to sow doubt

Which of the above factors do you think has played the biggest part? Did I miss something?

97 Responses

Ultimately people generally dont like change. The scariest thing out there is change and everybody loves the immediate path of least resistance.

Talking about global warming is fine, some will disagree. Talking about a plan to fight global warming is fine, a few more will disagree. When it comes to actually doing something about it, scores of people disagree.

Look at the weight problem in this country. Eating bad food and not excersizing is easy. Eating better and excersizing is hard and requires change. Everyone likes to talk about getting in shape, few really make long term changes. Nobody objects to the idea of a gym or the idea of eating more fruits and vegetables….but many object once they buy the gym membership or drive past a fast food joint.

The path of least resistance is so very tempting. If you can find psuedo-science to make yourself feel better about following the path of least resistance, that makes it even easier.

You’re absolutely right. Wikipedia is not a source. However, it is a compendium of source material, with links, which is what I was referring to.

Sigh.

You used it to justify calling people that are skeptical of AGW part of a “tobaccolike” conspiracy. And the page you linked is the Wikipedia page titled “Climate Change Denial” which, in its first sentence, states “Climate change denial is a term, generally pejorative…” a term (denial) you personally use on this very blog.

So we know that you are well aware that calling people “deniers” and “denialists” is pejorative based on your own statement.

Whatever.

OK not whatever. I actually went ahead and searched Eric’s Wikipedia link for “tobacco” and here’s the key graph:

One figure who has been associated with tobacco lobbying and global warming skepticism is former National Academy of Sciences president Dr.Frederick Seitz who, according to an article by Mark Hertsgaard in Vanity Fair, earned approximately US$ 585,000 in the 70s and 80s as a consultant to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. During that time R.J. Reynolds contributed $45 million to the medical research co-ordinated by Seitz and others at Rockefeller University. Although the research did not touch upon the health effects of tobacco smoking, Hertsgaard writes that the tobacco industry frequently cited these grants as showing its commitment to science, while claiming that scientific views on the health effects of smoking were mixed.

That’s it. No really, go look for yourself. Some guy you never heard of (Seitz) and that has nothing I know of to do with AGW theory, supposedly accepted a half million bucks 40 years ago from RJ Reynolds.

According to that good old reliable science journal Vanity Fair. That is the justification Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle is using for calling people that are skeptical of AGW…victims of?…a “tobaccolike campaign”.

Eric, everyone knows Wikipedia is unreliable on AGW. Even my wife knows that. It isn’t too bad on some non-controversial subjects but when it comes to AGW you might as well directly quote RealClimate.org.

Bewildered, A simple Google search for “exxon climate change tobacco” provides a large number of links about the tobacco-like links of climate change denial. From the Guardian, we have a plea from the Royal Society for Exxon to stop funding denial, or George Monbiot on Exxon’s funding of the denial industry, or the Union of Concerned Scientists views on Exxon’s Tobacco-like disinformation campaign agaainst climate change. I think there has been enough previous information out there for Eric to assert a tobacco-like campaign to sow doubt.Eric, I would also propose that the media’s complete inability to inform the public about really complex scientific issues is a factor. Like the five blind men describing an elephant, the media seems to only relish publishing an incomplete narrative, shrinking from actually proposing that one blind man may be closer to the truth or that synthesizing all the views would produce a complete description.Like David, I have a PhD and have done work in biotech for 30 years. The media generally do a horrible job actually presenting evolution as the rock-solid explanation for the data we see around us. There simply is no other theory that so completely explains ALL the facts. Yet,61% of the people in the US do not think that is so. The media in the US generally does little to really alter this, and, with the loss of so many science reporters, will continue to do little.For me, AGW is the best theory to explain all the data. It may be hard for some to discern how robust it is but it is the best we have. Other explanations are not nearly as robust. As a human, I would love to hear a theory that explains all the data and does not involve temperatures rising due to man’s burning of fossil fuels. I have yet to hear one. (Simply saying all the scientists are lying is not a theory.)There are researchers, such as Lindzen, who are actually doing science to perhaps work out a new theory or to find weaknesses in the current AGW. He actually does not appear to totally disagree with AGW. He just feels that the effect on temperature will be less than most others have stated. So he publishes work that shows lower sensitivity of CO2. Others look at this and gather/publish data to rebut his view. That is how science works.The media narrative, however, always wants to produce good guys and bad guys. The press ofen wants to tell an interesting story and if the facts get in the way of the narrative, ignore them.

Then there is the race for markets. China is moving aggressively to create jobs in the clean-energy industry. Beijing not only plans to generate 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, but hopes to become the world’s leading exporter of clean energy technologies. Five years ago, it had no presence at all in the wind manufacturing industry; today it has 70 manufacturers. It is rapidly becoming a world leader in solar power, with one-third of the world’s manufacturing capacity.

The jobs argument should impress the Senate. Yet many Democrats as well as Republicans seem willing to settle for what would be the third energy bill in five years — loans for nuclear power, mandates for renewable energy, new standards for energy efficiency. These are all useful steps. But the only sure way to unlock the investments required to transform the way the country produces and delivers energy is to put a price on carbon.

Uh, oh….where’s the front page on this? Oh, it was a small oil spill in the channel. Nevermind.

Mr. D’Aleo and Mr. Smith say NOAA and another U.S. agency, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have not only reduced the total number of Canadian weather stations in the database, but have “cherry picked” the ones that remain by choosing sites in relatively warmer places, including more southerly locations, or sites closer to airports, cities or the sea — which has a warming effect on winter weather.

Over the past two decades, they say, “the percentage of [Canadian] stations in the lower elevations tripled and those at higher elevations, above 300 feet, were reduced in half.”

Using the agency’s own figures, Smith shows that in 1991, almost a quarter of NOAA’s Canadian temperature data came from stations in the high Arctic. The same region contributes only 3% of the Canadian data today.

Mr. D’Aleo and Mr. Smith say NOAA and GISS also ignore data from numerous weather stations in other parts of the world, including Russia, the U.S. and China.

They say NOAA collects no temperature data at all from Bolivia — a high-altitude, landlocked country — but instead “interpolates” or assigns temperature values for that country based on data from “nearby” temperature stations located at lower elevations in Peru, or in the Amazon basin.

The result, they say, is a warmer-than-truthful global temperature record.

Commentary here suggest that if CO2 rises then temperature must also rise. There is a problem with that statement. History proves it’s the other way around. First temperature rises, then CO2 follows. One possibility: Chem 101 clearly defines warm water will hold less CO2 than cold so if the ocean warm due to any of several sources, then guess what? CO2 follows – just like the records show.

GW (and cooling) is a fact – I refer again to Scotese. It is also all natural and man is not involved.

Bewildered, A simple Google search for “exxon climate change tobacco” provides a large number of links about the tobacco-like links of climate change denial.

You’re kidding, right?

It produces a pitiful 179,000 results, and even if that was a large number for a google search so what? Would that make Wikipedia accurate? My rough estimate is that IANVS has posted something that would produce a hit on that search 5,000 times here in the last 6 months alone.

Moreover, why would anyone put “exxon climate change tobacco” in google in the first place? Why not “aliens climate change tobacco” which produces almost 3 times as many results? Using this sort of logic I would have been 3x as likely to be influenced by Eric’s post if he’d have included “Space Alien tobacco lobby sows doubt”.

Have I now just proved that it is 3x as likely that global warming is caused by a conspiracy between tobacco producers and space aliens? Is this the sort of thing you guys are looking at and calling science?

We pray you don’t let yourself fall into this kind of media-spread-denial cr*p. Apparently, a whole p*sspot full of your compatriots did, including Science, Science News, & the US News & World Report. You news guys had better clean up your act before informed citizens cancel their subs & responsible advertisers depart for greener pastures.

MEMO TO MEDIA: Please start doing some damn journalism — like placing a simple phone call to a primary source. A great many “newspapers” like the Daily Mail are no more reliable than the websites of the anti-science disinformers, like the thoroughly discredited ClimateDepot of Marc Morano.

Totally inexcusable. “Journalism is not peer review.” Apparently journalism isn’t much more than the children’s game of telephone these days. Certainly it doesn’t seem to involve the use of a real telephone.

Lal’s phone number is easy to find online, and I called him myself, even though it was after midnight in India (I hoped he was on travel), but he answered it immediately.

He said these were “the most vilest allegations” and denied that he ever made such assertions. He said “I didn’t put it [the 2035 claim] in to impress policymakers…. We reported the facts about science as we knew them and as was available in the literature.”

“Our role was to bring out the factual science. The fact is the IPCC has been very conservative.

Bewildered,Hey, I was simply responding to the skepticism expressed regarding why Eric would believe there had been any tobacco-like campaign, in particular his use of Wikipedia to provide links. I showed that there were plenty of media reports of just such a campaign. So he had plenty of reason to include that in his questions. I was not saying that such a campaign has been used or is even accurate. That was not my point and I have not researched that aspect. I was just demonstrating that there were plenty of reputable articles besides Wikipedia that discussed such a campaign. Examining the veracity of the idea would be a more useful discussion than asking Eric if he was accusing skeptics of acting like tobacco companies.As for whether the search is invalid because it was “exxon climate change tobacco” and thus only had 179,000 hits, how about just “climate change tobacco”? That gives 2,250,000 hits. The links I provided are all still within the first 10 hits.So I would say attempts to move the goal posts by using aliens does not address my point, which was there are plenty of non-Wikipedia links from MSM that discuss tobacco-like campaigns. Eric was not raising an issue that has not been raised by others. That was my point.

The environmental movement in the United States (not the world, where Green Parties abound and have significant political power, especially in Europe where environmental consciousness is maintained at a much higher level than the U.S., partly due to a more informed populace) has waned after some of the most significant victories worldwide — the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Conservatives have been trying to undermine and weaken these landmarks since their initiation. The U.S. environmental movement (as well as National Parks, Monuments, and Forest) led the way for the world and still provides U.S. citizens with one of the cleanest and healthiest environments in the entire world. As with any high water mark, the tide will lower.

As noted here, correctly, the powers of Big Business do not mesh with the environmental movement. One of the things that the environmental victories did was force Big Business to do some things antithetical to the total bottom-line; they actually had to put scrubbers on stacks, for instance! That costs MONEY. So there is little doubt that Big Business will constantly be at odds with environmental regulations. This was starkly in evidence when the Republicans controlled Congress and the White House and energy corporations were writing energy policy. The attempts to rollback or rescind the Endangered Species Act are legion.

Thus, with economic travails a serious issue, Big Business asserts its profit-now, bottom-line focus is necessary for short-term economic security. However, the focus on the long-term, which requires inVESTment in the future, for the sake of future generations, is buried in the needs of the Now. Add to that the concerted effort (as has been noted) to undermine the certainties of science with emphasis on the essentially trivial uncertainties, these tactics have been able to convince the vast numbers of the scientifically illiterate in America that science is unable to settle matters of knowledge, and that therefore any opinion is as valid as factual information garnered and categorized by the scientific method. Thus have the illiterati triumphed. That is the core of the reason for the loss of trust in science — the rise of the voice of the rabble, where voting is seen as having the same validity as careful analysis in order to determine the way that the world and the Universe work.

The pendulum will eventually swing back when the scientifically-challenged masses will need the keepers of the scientific flame to rescue them from the perils of their ignorance. We just have to wait.

Once again, your news coverage from Houston may be shortchanging the growing U.S. political movement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, just as 1,198 bi-partisan legislators from 49 red & blue states urge our federal government to pass a climate and clean energy jobs bill.

As leaders in state legislatures across the country, we call on you to pass comprehensive clean energy jobs and climate change legislation.

We, the undersigned state legislators, call on you to enact comprehensive clean energy jobs and climate legislation that relies on continued close collaboration between state and federal governments. We pledge our support in pursuit of a more prosperous, more secure, and more energy independent America.

And once again, our responsible state governments are leading the way for our great nation.

At the state level, renewable energy standards, also known as renewable portfolio standards, have become increasingly popular. Today, 28 states and the District of Columbia have an RES on the books, and another five states have renewable energy goals that are not mandatory. All but one of these measures has been approved in the last seven years.

Many of those state standards are more stringent than the one outlined in the Waxman-Markey bill, which would establish a 15-percent RES by 2020, with an additional requirement that utilities reduce electricity demand by 5 percent via efficiency measures. Among its benefits would be a substantial reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases because new power needs would be meet by clean wind or sun.

Si, se puede!

The lesson for Congress is obvious. A national RES would expand on the benefits already accruing in many states: more nonpolluting power, a surge in clean-energy jobs, a reduction in carbon emissions, and a brighter future. The House Energy and Commerce Committee can launch a national renewable energy drive by passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

Interesting. It would indeed be ironic if a number of media outlets were guilty of behaviour similar to that which they are reporting about the IPCC. To some degree, at least, it’s better if to believe in sloppy, substandard work by the IPCC than in deliberate deception by Dr. Lal. I’ll wait a bit for the full story to come out before coming to conclusions. Nonetheless…

None of that changes my understanding that the IPCC report in its discussion about the Himalayan glaciers 1) Against its standards relied entirely on 1 non-peer reviewed source, 2) Overstated the rate of disappearance of glaciers by a factor of at least 10 and 3) Incorrectly stated that the Himalayan glaciers were retreating faster than glaciers in any other part of the world.

It’s still a very big deal, and casts a lot of doubt in my mind on the whole IPCC reporting process. In this instance, the IPCC did not “bring out the factual science”, nor was it “very conservative”.

We pray you don’t let yourself fall into this kind of media-spread-denial cr*p. Apparently, a whole p*sspot full of your compatriots did, including Science, Science News, & the US News & World Report.

Part of the fun of being “in the media” is that both sides rant and rave that you’re biased. All the time. Of course we’re biased. We’re human beings. We vote. We have opinions. But it’s my job to report down the middle, to find the truth amid the spin. And when it comes to climate change it’s really, really hard.

Your religion has fallen to dead last in a real poll of American’s priorities.

The only short comings in the news report is that the big oligarchies- ABC, CBS, NBS, NPR & CNN are still in denial mode, denying that AGW theory was nothing more than apocalyptic clap trap, whose claims fall apart as soon as they are actually critically reviewed.

ANNEX 2: PROCEDURE FOR USING NON-PUBLISHED/NON-PEER-REVIEWED SOURCES IN IPCC REPORTS

Because it is increasingly apparent that materials relevant to IPCC Reports, in particular, information about the experience and practice of the private sector in mitigation and adaptation activities, are found in sources that have not been published or peer-reviewed (e.g., industry journals, internal organisational publications, non-peer reviewed reports or working papers of research institutions, proceedings of workshops etc) the following additional procedures are provided. These have been designed to make all references used in IPCC Reports easily accessible and to ensure that the IPCC process remains open and transparent.

And just to make sure we know that Hansen really is backing terrorism to impose his AGW politics on us all, here is what he says about Keith Farnish’s call to violence, “Time’s Up!”:

“Keith Farnish has it right: time has practically run out, and the ‘system’ is the problem. Governments are under the thumb of fossil fuel special interests – they will not look after our and the planet’s well-being until we force them to do so, and that is going to require enormous effort.”

The real story, I would submit, is how a grass roots group using the blogosphere and the internet ahve managed to expose the great fraud of the AGW social movment and how it has highjacked climate scinece.

That AGW believers, supporting a theory that receives literally hundreds of millions a year in grants and donations, claim with a straight face that they are being outspent is no less astounding than people who believe in UFO abduction stories. And no more credible.

Informed citizens in better-educated, less-parochial, more-progressive parts of this great nation are well aware that the case for a climate bill is much stronger than a godfearing reporter might dare to publish in XOMarboro Country.“”

Posted by: IANVS at January 25, 2010 07:13 PM –

Eric,

We pray you don’t let yourself fall into this kind of media-spread-denial cr*p. Apparently, a whole p*sspot full of your compatriots did, including Science, Science News, & the US News & World Report. You news guys had better clean up your act before informed citizens cancel their subs & responsible advertisers depart for greener pastures.

How sad these of the AGW Religion have become. Back when the lies of their Church Leaders were being accepted because Americans would like to believe ALL scientists are honest and truthful, they were happy preaching their doom and gloom while investing in methods to profit from AGW mania.

But now, with their church’s lies and their minister scientists misdeeds coming to light, they resort to hateful, broad insults to entire geographic areas, and vulgar, evil threats against any who dare disagree with their decrees.

Perhaps, an intelligent concerned citizen should make the intellectually honest effort to familiarize self with the applicable standards, before inserting entirely the foot de jour.

I downloaded the .pdf that you linked. Here is the last paragraph:

Non-peer-reviewed sources will be listed in the reference sections of IPCC Reports. These will be integrated with references for the peer-reviewed sources. These will be integrated with references to the peer reviewed sources stating how the material can be accessed, but will be followed by a statement that they are not published.

So, yes, there is a protocol for including non-peer-reviewed sources, but they those are certainly supposed to be supplemental, not the soul source for a major claim. Let’s see what Dr. Nielsen-Gammon, not an AGW skeptic, has to say about it here and here.

From the first article by Dr. N-G:

To recap, the available evidence indicates that the IPCC authors of this section relied upon a secondhand, unreferreed source which turned out to be unreliable, and failed to identify this source. As a result, the IPCC has predicted the likely loss of most or all of Himalaya’s glaciers by 2035 with apparently no peer-reviewed scientific studies to justify such a prediction and at least one scientific study (Kotlyakov) saying that such a disappearance is too fast by a factor of ten!

Note the “failed to identify this source”, which conflicts with the standards from the .pdf file.

From the second N-G article:

Latest crack in the consensus??? The whole point is that the IPCC report didn’t reflect the consensus. The consensus, as far as we know, was right all along. And the Working Group 1 report of the IPCC reflected that consensus, with solid references to the peer-reviewed literature. The lesson here is that the IPCC does not deserve blanket trust for what they write; their reports are only as good as the references on which they’re based. And if the author had stuck to the IPCC’s own protocols for relying on the peer-reviewed literature, this mistake would never have been made in the firsts place.

Note that he’s not expressing skepticism about climate change, but about the IPCC report, again indicating that they did not follow their own protocols.

Don’t know what kind of climate change denial your insurers are slinging across the bayou, but the CEO of Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer, sure doesn’t have his head stuck in the beach sand.

Climate change is a fact, and it is almost entirely made by man. It is jointly responsible for the rise in severe weather-related natural disasters, since the weather machine is “running in top gear”. The figures speak for themselves: according to data gathered by Munich Re, weather-related natural catastrophes have produced US$ 1,600bn in total losses since 1980, and climate change is definitely a significant contributing factor. We assume that the annual loss amount attributable to climate change is already in the low double-digit billion euro range. And the figure is bound to rise dramatically in future.

And if we don’t get it together, climate catastrophe is just around the corner.

We need a strict climate agreement, and we need it fast. Climate change is a global problem and a challenge for humankind. If the players do nothing but pursue their national interests, we are headed for a climate catastrophe.

Insurance companies, acutely aware of the dramatic increase in losses caused by natural disasters in recent decades, have been convinced that global warming is partly to blame. Now their data seem to be persuading scientists, too. At a recent meeting of climate and insurance experts, delegates reached a cautious consensus: climate change is helping to drive the upward trend in catastrophes.

As the United States Global Change Research Project has found, infrastructure & property in South Texas & along the gulf are especially vulnerable to ever rising sea levels & more powerful storm surges.

6. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge. Sea-level rise and storm surge place many U.S. coastal areas at increasing risk of erosion and flooding, especially along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts…. Energy and transportation infrastructure and other property in coastal areas are very likely to be adversely affected.

Eric should post this in his SciGuy banner to remind you & other anti-science deniers that scientists do the science, not untrained laymen.

Richard Somerville, a distinguished professor emeritus and research professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, issued the following statement in response to a recent request to address claims recently made by climate change denialists.

The essential findings of mainstream climate change science are firm…. We know this because we can measure the effect of man-made carbon dioxide and it is much stronger than that of the sun, which we also measure.

The greenhouse effect is well understood…. We know the increase is due to human activities like burning fossil fuels because we can analyze the chemical evidence for that.

Our climate predictions are coming true. Many observed climate changes, like rising sea level, are occurring at the high end of the predicted changes.

The standard skeptical arguments have been refuted many times over.

Science has its own high standards. It does not work by unqualified people making claims on television or the Internet. It works by scientists doing research and publishing it in carefully reviewed research journals. Other scientists examine the research and repeat it and extend it. Valid results are confirmed, and wrong ones are exposed and abandoned. Science is self-correcting. People who are not experts, who are not trained and experienced in this field, who do not do research and publish it following standard scientific practice, are not doing science. When they claim that they are the real experts, they are just plain wrong.

The leading scientific organizations of the world, like national academies of science and professional scientific societies, have carefully examined the results of climate science and endorsed these results. It is silly to imagine that thousands of climate scientists worldwide are engaged in a massive conspiracy to fool everybody. The first thing that the world needs to do if it is going to confront the challenge of climate change wisely is to learn about what science has discovered and accept it.

Your alleged quote from the IPCC means then that it is simply a reflection of its editors views, and that its claims are not in fact scientific at all. In reality the IPCC is a political sales tool, as well as a tool that its leadership can use to drum up business and grants for themselves.

Yet Dr. n-g and others were under the impression that the IPCC was to only use peer reviewed literature.

re: “Which of the above factors do you think has played the biggest part?”

Was there ever any doubt?

The reason ought to be clear. The climate confusion campaign – waged by the like of Americans for Prosperity, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Petroleum Institute and American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) – is alive and well, and obviously still inflicting damage.

Oh no, not another dig at lazy reporters!

The real damage caused by these scandals resulted from the lazy reporting done by most journalists on the subject. The media failed to report the real story of “Climategate” – that a crime was committed by thieves who stole from a prestigious university in order to further an agenda of harassment against climate scientists.

Who writes this stuff, anyway?

In both of these cases, and in general, the media should shoulder the bulk of the responsibility, failing to remind the public that the body of science proving human-caused climate change is vast and global, published in peer-reviewed journals, and validated by major scientific bodies the world over.

I’ve never met David Rose of the U.K.’s Daily Mail. And, while his past reporting on climate issues has tended to misrepresent the science of the day, it is entirely possible his editors are to blame for the fictionalization of his latest story. So I won’t point fingers at this juncture. Regardless, the affair is an ominous reminder of how easily an idea can migrate across the world in a matter of hours even though anyone with a middle-school education could spot the flaw within a few seconds.

The main problem with both the lead (or lede for those who prefer jargon) is that there is nothing in the rest of the story to substantiate…. All you have to do is keep reading to know that there’s something fishy with Rose’s story.

How much of the $50billions allegedly spent on AGW would it have taken to find a technical solution to soot from coal plants, reducing this primary climate forcing substantially, with the immediate benefit of reducing ice melt.

Instead, an AGW obsession on CO2 and phony climate catastrophes and over stated positive feedbacks. And inspite of Kyoto, Jakarta, and Copenhagen, nothing has been done by the AGW community except make noise.

Maybe it is time for a more constructive approach than spamming conspiracy theories?

The “Convenient Truth” isn’t at the theaters anymore…y’know…the factual basis the general public uses for their knowledge on global warming?

I’m sure the writers and reporters saw it after a good wine addled dinner as well. Now, it’s just old news, since there’s not a scary movie about it anymore…gotta catch the end of the earth scare movies on the History channel to get your facts nowdays and make your own popcorn.

Got any content to contribute tonight, pilgrim? This is a science blog after all, not grade school recess.

The increasing use of fossil fuels is contributing to the environmental challenges of global climate change; air, water, and land pollution; and loss of biological diversity. At Synthetic Genomics Inc., we are developing novel genomic-driven strategies to address global energy and environmental challenges. Recent advances in the field of synthetic genomics present seemingly limitless applications that could revolutionize production of energy, chemicals and pharmaceuticals and enable carbon sequestration and environmental remediation. Given our team’s longstanding history of pioneering science, we are uniquely positioned to ignite a biological industrial revolution, and we are committed to unlocking the keys to a clean energy future through genomics. For more information visit Synthetic Genomics Inc.

Not responding to IANVS does run the risk of his highjacking the blog and filling it with his spam and spew, but then it becomes an issue for our host.

If no one can communicate because he fills the board with huge propaganda quotes then that is a problem for our host. There are plenty of boards that do do as RC, and let people argue, discuss and debate, that are not dominated by guests who in effect run everyone off.

Yes, John, our resident denier troll has 50% more mindless, zero-content, “full of sound & fury, signifying nothing” posts than anybody else on this SciGuy thread, & he’s even much worse (hard to believe, we know) on many other SciGuy threads. But expect him to deny all that, as well.

So, again, do try to add useful content to the science & technology conversations instead of just mindlessly whining out loud. God (& Eric) knows, we have enough teabagging afoot, esp. in these low-lying, parochial parts.

Glad we got that off our collective chest.

Say, speaking of anti-science denial, did you have the good fortune to catch Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground & how the scientific analysis of the actual data shows Anthony Watts’ with his head up his WUWT?

You didn’t? Well, let’s take a look at it together, shall we?

Dr. Jeff Masters posted his astute assessment of Watts & his XOM-funded co-conspirators-in-denial on his WunderBlog just the other day for all to see.

While Watts’ publication by the Heartland Institute is a valuable source of information on siting problems of the U.S. network of weather stations, the publication did not undergo peer-review–the process whereby three anonymous scientists who are experts in the field review a manuscript submitted for publication, and offer criticisms on the scientific validity of the results, resulting in revisions to the original paper or outright rejection. The Heartland Institute is an advocacy organization that accepts money from corporate benefactors such as the tobacco industry and fossil fuel industry, and publishes non-peer reviewed science that inevitably supports the interests of the groups paying for the studies. Watts did not actually analyze the data to see if taking out the poorly sited surface stations would have a significant impact on the observed 1.1°F increase in U.S. temperatures over the past century. His study would never have been publishable in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

So the dedicated expert climate scientists over at NOAA did a scientific study, peer-reviewed no less.

Fortunately, a proper analysis of the impact of these poorly-sited surface stations on the U.S. historical temperature record has now been done by Dr. Matthew Menne and co-authors at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).

And Watt do you think the data, including Watts’ own surfacestations.org’s, actually shows when analyzed using scientific methods? A cooling bias, we sh*t you not.

Dr. Menne’s study computed the average daily minimum and maximum temperatures from the good sites and poor sites. While the poor sites had a slightly warmer average minimum temperature than the good sites (by 0.03°C), the average maximum temperature measured at the poor sites was significantly cooler (by 0.14°C) than the good sites. As a result, overall average temperatures measured at the poor sites were cooler than the good sites. This is the opposite of the conclusion reached by Anthony Watts in his 2009 Heartland Institute publication.

Masters is much more generous to Watts than Watts has been the entire scientific community, which he has repeatedly accused of fraud and bad faith. Watts has responded on his website, but most of the response is non-substantive, process-related whining that appears to be contradicted by reporting by Andy Revkin at DotEarth.

Just don’t miss the comments there or on Andy Revkin’s DOT EARTH where some salivating climate scientists await their afternoon feeding.

The ball is clearly in Mr. Watts’s court. The peer-reviewed literature awaits.

IANVS, have you ever actually stopped and thought how much different the world would be if people remembered that Jesus is watching them and behaved accordingly? It sure wouldn’t be the sick and violent world we live in today. All the problems we see everywhere, stem from the very fact that people don’t keep that in mind and just do whatever they want.

There is a *direct correlation* between a person’s thoughts and their actions. Nobody wakes up one morning and out of the blue says: “I think I’m gonna rob a bank or blow up a building today” -or- “I’m gonna rape that pretty girl at school this afternoon.”

Actions spring from thoughts…(Cause and Effect) What you feed your mind, eventually takes root in your heart,…and if you let it grow unchecked, it will eventually blossom into an unhealthy, obsessive or even dangerous pattern of behavior. (Cause and Effect).

Why do you think Jesus warned about that very thing? “I say to YOU that everyone that keeps on looking at a woman so as to have a passion for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28)

“All these wicked things issue forth from within and defile a man.” (Mark 7:23)

Let me give you the perfect real-life example of this…I personally know someone (who unlike yourself), didn’t have the luxury of being given any moral direction in school. He grew up in a rough area of Chicago, constantly got into fights and was sent to a reform school where he got involved in all kinds of bad stuff.

When he moved here to AZ this was his profile at the time I met him:

he gambled, smoked, was on all kinds of drugs and addicted to alcohol, he was a drug dealer, extremely physically violent, living a very immoral lifestyle for years (with both men and women), sadistic and cruel to others, constantly getting himself into trouble with the law and his parents. Watched and listened to all kinds of vulgar & violent music, movies, and pornography. He was rebellious and defiant to all authority, and he constantly lied and deceived everyone (including friends and family), and would cheat & steal from his employers.

-Pretty much the last person on earth who you’d ever expect to ‘behave as if Jesus was watching’ right? … (I prayed for this kid so much, but even I had doubts he’d ever change!)

Well guess what? surprise, surprise…he’s been studying the Bible, he legalized his marriage with the girl he was living with, and he finally stopped everything else bad he was doing. And now he’s planning on getting baptized this year.

And do you know what he said to me just recently which was so unexpected that I just about fell out of my chair?

(Unlike your reaction to Sister Mary’s words), he took that advice about ‘pure thoughts’ to heart, because after quoting Romans 12:1&2 which says: “…present YOUR bodies a sacrifice living, holy, acceptable to God,…And quit being fashioned after this system of things, but be transformed by making YOUR mind over.” he then proceeded to tell me that he finally understands why presenting a *clean sacrifice* (by keeping both his thoughts and actions morally clean) is essential to having God’s approval.

Todd Stern, the top U.S. climate negotiator for the Obama administration, also gave notice that, as expected, it will aim for a 17 percent reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming by 2020, with 2005 as the base year. U.S. formally embraces Copenhagen climate deal

As you’ve no doubt noticed by now, the Pentagon is also onboard with Copenhagen to the tune of “cutting emissions from its non-combat facilities by 34 percent by 2020.” If our M-A-T-H serves us, that’s double what Todd Stern mentioned in our formal notice to the Secretariat last week, no?

Now, even a blindsided libertarian catholic has gotta admit those are some pretty hefty, if not pre-emptive, GHG emissions cuts, but then, our armed forces always were a pretty aggressive lot, wouldn’t you say?

And you can thank the powers-that-be that our military now understands and is preparing to deal with all the inextricable national security threats that are exacerbated by anthropogenic global warming.

Climate change and energy are two key issues that will play a significant role in shaping the future security environment. Although they produce distinct types of challenges, climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked. The actions that the Department takes now can prepare us to respond effectively to these challenges in the near term and in the future.

A true patriot should not allow a convoluted ideology from the bajous to blindside him to the escalating dangers of this globally warming planet.

The military is working on not just responding to the impacts of global warming, but also mitigating the threat by reducing global warming emissions. Increased use of renewable energy and energy efficiency not only lessens the military’s enormous carbon footprint, but also delivers immediate security benefits.

We can all thank our democratic process & our last general election that our military leaders no longer do.

And with all our military forces more aggressively seeking to harness bright new sustainable energy sources to empower their mega-facilities at home & abroad, we can all expect to see a lot more homegrown rising solar stars over the next few years, if not weeks & months ahead.

GT Solar is a leading provider of turnkey and equipment solutions to companies for manufacturing products that harness solar power. We are the only company that has the ability to equip customers with turnkey and equipment solutions, and provide technical expertise across the entire solar value chain – from wafer to cells, all the way through module fabrication.